The palera1n jailbreak, albeit intended for developers more-so than the general public, remains one of the only publicly available jailbreaks supporting iOS & iPadOS 15.x. But as more users turn to the newer iOS & iPadOS 16 for the newer features, it only seems appropriate to mention that palera1n co-developer @itsnebulalol has teased successful tweak injection and kernel memory read and write capabilities on a physical iOS 16 device.
The announcement, shared via a post on /r/jailbreak, shows us that pwned handset was an iPhone 8 running iOS 16.1.1. This device sports the same A11 chip as the iPhone X, and for what it’s worth, this was made possible because of the unpatchable hardware-based checkm8 bootrom exploit, the same exploit that powers the checkra1n jailbreak.
It’s worth noting that iOS & iPadOS 16.1.1 are still being signed by Apple at the time of this writing.
Because @itsnebulalol’s hack utilizes the checkm8 bootrom exploit, it won’t work on devices newer than the iPhone X. When originally discovered, A7-A11-equipped handsets were susceptible to the checkm8 bootrom exploit; however Apple’s software limitations prevent iOS and iPadOS 16 from being installed on A7 and A8 devices, so this means that only A9-A11 devices running iOS or iPadOS 16 are supported by the latest hack.
The post also included screenshots of both the Cydia and Sileo home pages, which show that the handset in question is indeed an iPhone 10,1 running iOS 16.1.1. These screenshots corroborate the Terminal window that outright showed that the device in question was an iPhone 8:
While these handsets are definitely close to reaching legacy status, it’s worth noting that a lot of jailbreakers still use the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, or iPhone X since these devices can effectively be pwned for life thanks to checkm8. It’s worth noting, however, that iOS 16 doesn’t run as fluidly on these devices as it does on newer handsets like the iPhone 12 and newer due to hardware limitations.
Still, that won’t stop avid jailbreakers from going ahead and jumping aboard when the green light is given, since many users, developers or not, are already taking advantage of the palera1n jailbreak despite it being intended for developers. That’s because other jailbreak teams haven’t been able to release a working iOS or iPadOS 15 jailbreak for the general public as of yet.
It remains to be seen whether @itsnebulalol plans to release their work, or if it would be provided as an update to palera1n or as an entirely different jailbreak tool. Obviously, no ETA has been provided, and only time will tell. iDB will continue to monitor the progress of this latest development and keep its readers apprised.
Would you jailbreak iOS or iPadOS 16 if this saw the light? Let us know in the comments section down below.
